I guess Kim's held no hard feelings against its landlord, because the Spectator also reports that they donated their entire movie rental collection to Columbia’s Butler Media Collection: "approximately 17,500 DVDs, 500 DVD boxed sets, and 10,000 VHS tapes." Said a librarian there, “The Kim’s collection will be an important addition, particularly in areas of U.S. and foreign feature film titles, anime, and television programming.”

A Ricky's will be moving in to the spot, starting with lots of Halloween costumes. Says one commenter at the Spectator, "how many ricky's does this town need? they're like starbucks now." Another just opened at 13th and 6th, former site of Cosi sandwiches--that makes either 18 or 19 for Manhattan.

As I reported here earlier, a new Kim's is opening in the East Village, on 1st Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets. The sign is up and the shelves just went in this past weekend.

The new Kim's will be the final nail in the coffin of Two Boots video rental, which is so pathetic in that one little room with hardly any selection. It's time to use up those pre-buys before they are gone.

The NYPL has been in the process of dumping ALL of its VHS. That's the most interesting part of Kim's collection.

As for the DVDs, it's probably part of NYPL policy not to take advantage of big donations like that. The response would be, "OK, we're slashing your budget for DVDs, since you got so many. Just keep asking for donations."

The NYPL has actually shut down a lot of the charity bookstores in their branches, bookstores run by volunteers with all profits from donated books going to the NYPL! They still have a bookstore at Mid-Manhattan at 40th but who knows for how long.

Sad situation for Mondo Kim fans, but Netflix was only part of the problem. Alot of their rare VHS items and bootlegs...easy to find at certain forums on the Internet. Most people don't mind an AVI file download...especially when it's free.